Lincoln Center Unveils Innovative New Home for Jazz

Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at LincolnCenter's new home and the world's first performing arts facility for jazz music performance, education and broadcasting opened its doors on Oct. 18.

Located in the TimeWarnerBuilding at Columbus Circle in Manhattan, Rose Hall (http://www.jalc.org) is a 100,000 square foot integrated performing arts facility featuring three main-stage performance spaces: the 1,200-seat RoseTheater, the 600-seat AllenRoom, with soaring windows overlooking Central Park, and the intimate late-night jazz venue, Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola. The facility also includes 3,500 square feet of classrooms, recording studios, rehearsal spaces and The Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame.

Although the RoseTheater was designed primarily for jazz, it can also accommodate opera, dance, theater, film and orchestral performances. The theater employs "floating box-in-box construction." With no rigid structural connections to the rest of Frederick P. Rose Hall, the theater sits on rubber isolation pads, designed to minimize the noise from outside and create an extremely quiet and intimate space. With this special construction, RoseTheater is designed to achieve background noise levels low enough that no sound from the outside, or from mechanical building systems will disturb the performance.

Additionally, the room contains a system of moveable seating towers that allow the venue to accommodate a wide range of performance types. In concert mode, the towers will be positioned behind and around the musicians, serving an acoustics and visual function, as well as providing audience seating for jazz concerts, symphonic performances and chamber recitals. In theater mode, the towers are easily moved into storage via an air caster system to provide a clear platform for performances using scenic elements, such as drama, opera, ballet and modern dance.

The AllenRoom, whose 50-by-90 foot glass wall overlooks Central Park, is a semiformal, intimate setting featuring several special acoustical treatments, including panels hung from catwalks and ceiling to help diffuse and absorb sound.

The smaller venues of Rose Hall each also feature unique design aspects: Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola is a live performance venue that speaks with a "golden" sound and encourages musician-audience interaction, the recording studio, one of the largest in New York, is intended to be a multi-purpose venue, incorporating a sprung dance floor for dance performance. To support JALC's educational and archival mission, recording and broadcasting capabilities were built into the infrastructure of every space.

"This performing arts facility affords us new opportunities to further our mission of collaboration and integration with all the arts through the spirit of jazz," said Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis. "The breadth of the programming reflects tradition and innovation and celebrates the complete integration of ideas, generations and feelings."

Artech Consultants of New York were responsible for theatre planning, theatre equipment, acoustics, and sound & communication system design services, in partnership with Walters-Storyk Design Group (www.wsdg.com), under the joint-venture name "Sound of Jazz". The architect for the facility is Rafael Viñoly Architects.